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The North Carolina Tar Heels (20-7 SU, 16-11 ATS) have had an up-and-down season but are on an impressive upswing of late.

The Heels have won nine games in a row, including home wins vs. Pitt and now-No. 6 Duke. The nine-game streak comes after losing four of their first five conference contests and falling out of the top 25.

Roy Williams' squad was all the way down the board at 100-to-1 at one point this season.

Following the Duke game, Marcus Paige said, "I'm not going to say we're a finished product because we've got games left, but man, we're playing really well right now and we're winning games in a lot of different ways."

One area of the game Paige was probably referring to is defense, which the Tar Heels don't traditionally rely on. Their best defense is typically an offense that runs and scores until opponents are completely out of gas or completely out of the game. However, with the suspension of P.J. Hairston, last season's leading scorer, the Heels have had to adjust.

They allow 68 points per game, which ranks 112th in the nation, so they aren't going to be mistaken for Virginia anytime soon. But increased urgency and focus on the defensive end is at the core of their recent surge.

"They would just keep switching," Duke point guard Quinn Cook said of UNC's defense in last Thursday's game. "We'd come down, and we wouldn't know what they'd be in. They kept us on our toes with their defense".

Free throws, though, continue to be an issue for the Heels. They shot just 64.5 percent from the line against Duke, but did convert on all six attempts in the final minute and followed that up by shooting 82.8 percent from the stripe Saturday against Wake Forest. Atrocious foul shooting had a lot to do with three of the Heels' seven losses, so if the improvement in that area is real, it will make them a more dangerous team down the stretch.

The Heels still have room to improve, but after looking NIT-bound early in 2014, they now feel like a team that could be scary come March. If you're on board with that sentiment, 40-to-1 is a bargain.